[1] He was born in Manchester, the son of a policeman, Edward Skidmore, and his wife Irene.
[1] He attended Didsbury Central school until he and his mother were evacuated to Derbyshire during the Second World War.
As a sergeant in the 7th Armoured Division, he was sent to Germany in 1948 to cover the Berlin Airlift and began broadcasting on British Forces Radio.
He helped train the young Aled Jones in the skills of radio presenting.
[6] In 2001, he reported two Welsh nationalists, including John Elfed Jones, to the Commission for Racial Equality, claiming that their comments about the English were tantamount to racism.